Some Scripture references where caring is referred to:

Philippians 2 : 1-2
“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”
Hebrews 3 : 13
“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
Matthew 25 : 40
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’”
Galatians 6 : 10:
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

THE DEFINITION OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Encouragement is the expression used, either verbal or non-verbal in helping a person cope with or overcome a difficult time in their life and experience.

If we are to be effective encouragers in the church we need to look for opportunities. As people in the church grapple with problems we need to remember that underlining these problems is a basic fear and a fear that focuses on rejection and exposure. In our caring for people, folk need to feel our care. People are good at covering up with ‘masks’ and some of the layers that they use are as follows:

• Extreme shyness
• Over-talkativeness – avoiding questions that could lead to rejection
• Feigned humility
• Exaggerated behaviour
• Saccharin sweetness
• Blame-shifting
• Anger stuffing
• Anger dumping – suppressing their anger - only allowing it to emerge in some other way.

As we care for people we need to focus our attention on the three following principles:

• The person’s potential: We need to see what they can become - John 1 : 42
• Behaviour that is worthwhile - Philippians 4 : 8
• Their intrinsic worth - James 3 : 9

HOW T0 BE AN ENCOURAGER

The motive for being an encourager should be based on the fact that we want to bless someone else, remembering how much God cares for us and we need to commit ourselves to serving and not being served.

• In order to be an encourager we need to be alert to opportunities for encouragement – we need to be alert to hurting signals that people send out, eg:
• Sad or downcast expression
• Uncharacteristic behaviour
• Letting routine tasks go
• Indecisiveness
• Tone of voice
• Dress
• Learn the art of effective listening
• We need to learn the art of empathising with hurt feelings. You may know a persons thoughts, judgements and ideas but you will never truly know a person until you know how she or he really feels. Some of the person’s feelings expressed could indicate an insecurity, anxiousness, being fretful, disappointment or even despair.

Words of encouragement are always ….

• Prompted by love (Proverbs 15:23)
• Chosen with care (Proverbs 25:11)
• Spoken with tenderness (Ephesians 4:29)

When we are seeking to encourage people our body language is so important.

The words that we say constitute only 7% of the way we communicate,
our tone of voice 38% the balance of 55% - non-verbal language.

Prayer:
One of the important things that we can do as we seek to encourage people is to pray with them.

Whenever we pray we should pray...

• Naturally (we use the language that the person understands)
• Perceptively (we bring out the fears and hurts and identify them by name)
• Specifically (we focus on asking God to deal with the problem)

May God help you as you seek to be an Encourager at Honeyridge!